CIVIL SOCIETY LETTER SUPPORTING PROPOSAL BY INDIA AND SOUTH AFRICA ON WAIVER FROM CERTAIN PROVISIONS OF THE TRIPS AGREEMENT FOR THE PREVENTION, CONTAINMENT AND TREATMENT OF COVID-19 Dear Members of the World Trade Organization, We the undersigned organisations call on all WTO Members to strongly support the adoption of the decision text proposed by India and South Africa in their proposal for “Waiver from certain provisions of the TRIPS Agreement for the prevention, containment and treatment of COVID19” (Waiver Proposal). When COVID-19 was declared to be a pandemic, there was overwhelming consensus that to curb the spread of COVID-19, there was an urgent need for international collaboration to speed up product development, scale up of manufacturing, expand the supply of effective medical technologies and ensure everyone, everywhere is protected. There were even calls including from several Heads of State for COVID-19 medical products to be treated as global public goods. Seven months into the pandemic, there is no meaningful global policy solution to ensure access. Instead, there is an inequality of access to critical technologies that are needed to address the pandemic. Many countries, especially developing and least developed countries struggling to contain COVID-19 have experienced and are facing acute shortages of medical products, including access to diagnostic testing.1 Furthermore, wealthy nations representing only 13 percent of the global population have locked up at least half the doses of the world’s five leading potential vaccines.2 In this pandemic, the pharmaceutical industry has mainly pursued “business as usual” approaches, entrenching monopolistic intellectual property (IP) controls over COVID-19 health technologies that restrict scale-up of manufacturing, lock out diversified suppliers, and undermine competition that results in lower prices. A few companies, such as Astra Zeneca, have pledged not for profit prices during the pandemic, and yet by maintaining control over these technologies, can unilaterally declare the end of the pandemic and increase prices to maximise profits, even if it undermines international efforts to save lives.3 The COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) launched by WHO (to voluntarily share knowledge, IP and data), has been rejected by the pharmaceutical industry.4 Instead, companies continue to sign secretive and restrictive licensing agreements. For example, Gilead Sciences’ secret licensing agreements for remdesivir, a medicine that was developed with substantial public funding, are restricted to a few manufacturers of its choosing, thereby preventing low-cost supply to nearly half of the world’s population. Unsurprisingly, there have been global shortages of the medicine, with many developing countries yet to see even a single vial of the treatment exported to them. Given the medicine’s limited effectiveness, we are deeply concerned that such an approach for a safe and effective therapy will exclude even more people from treatment access. Additionally, emerging intellectual property infringement disputes on COVID-19 technologies threatens to block collaborative research and development and manufacturing of COVID-19 medical products5. These restrictive business strategies have directly translated into exorbitant pricing and profiteering,6 With entire health systems already overwhelmed by COVID-19 and with governments facing a looming economic crisis, the health budgets of many countries simply cannot sustain highly priced COVID-19 medical products. These realities will also hinder production by any competent manufacturer and impede the full freedom to collaborate, in developing, producing, importing and exporting the needed medical products. While the TRIPS Agreement contains flexibilities that can promote access, many WTO Members may face challenges in using them promptly and effectively. For instance, compulsory license offers a “product by product”, and “country by country” approach with variations in national laws, whereas the pandemic requires collective global action to tackle IP barriers and facilitate technology transfer. Where the IP barrier is beyond patents, national laws may not provide for sufficient flexibilities. Further, Article 31bis, a mechanism to supply countries with insufficient manufacturing capacity, does not provide an expedited solution and many countries have also opted out of using the mechanism. Unless concrete steps are taken at the global level to address intellectual property and technology barriers, the abovementioned failures and shortcomings will replay as new medicines, vaccines and other medical products are rolled out. Access will have to be rationed, with devastating effects for public health and global economic recovery. In a global pandemic where every country is affected, we need a global solution.7 Adoption of a Waiver at the WTO level will suspend implementation, application and enforcement of the relevant provisions of the TRIPS Agreement in relation to prevention, containment, and treatment of COVID- 19. It enables an expedited, open and automatic global solution to allow uninterrupted collaboration in development, production and supply, and to collectively address the global challenge facing all countries. It’s time for governments to take collective responsibility and put people’s lives before corporate monopolies. Therefore, we strongly request you to unequivocally support the adoption of the proposed Waiver at the upcoming TRIPS Council meeting. SIGNATORIES Global 1. Commons Network 2. Curbing Corruption 3. Friends of the Earth International 4. GRAIN 5. Grail Justice and Trade Agreements Network 6. Health Action International (HAI) 7. Health Alliance International 8. Health Global Access Project 9. Health Poverty Action 10. IndustriALL Global Union 11. Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy 12. Institute for Economic Research on Innovation 13. Interagency Coalition on AIDS and Development (ICAD) 14. International Code Documentation Centre 15. International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) 16. International Treatment Preparedness Coalition 17. Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) 18. LDC Watch 19. Médecins du Monde 20. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Access Campaign 21. Oxfam 22. Pan-African International 23. Peoples Health Movement 24. People’s Vaccine Alliance 25. Public Services International (PSI) 26. ReAct--Action on Antibiotic Resistance 27. Regions Refocus 28. Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary 29. Southern African Programme on Access to Medicines and Diagnosis (SAPAM) 30. Social Watch 31. Society for international Development 32. Transnational Institute 33. Transparency International Health Initiative 34. Third World Network 35. Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM) 36. Womankind Worldwide Regional 37. Africa Development Interchange Network (ADIN), 38. African Alliance 39. African Centre for Global Health and Social Transformation (ACHEST) 40. Africa Trade Network (ATN) 41. Africa Young Positives Network (AY +) 42. Arab NGO Network for Development (ANND) 43. Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development 44. Asia Pacific Network of People Living with HIV (APN+) 45. Associação Brasileira de Economia Industrial e Inovação 46. Association des Femmes de l'Europe Méridionale (AFEM) 47. Building and Wood Workers International Asia Pacific 48. Comité de América Latina y el Caribe para la defensa de los Derechos de las Mujeres, Latin America y el Caribe 49. DAWN (Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era), Global South 50. EEPA, Europe External Programme with Africa 51. EHNE-BIZKAIA, Euskal Herria, Basque Country 52. Eurasian harm reduction association, CEECA 53. European Alliance for Responsible R&D and Affordable Medicines, Europe 54. Focus on the Global South 55. Health Action International Asia Pacific 56. International Treatment Preparedness Coalition Regional Office for Latino America and Caribbean 57. International Treatment Preparedness Coalition- South Asia 58. International Treatment Preparedness Coalition, Middle East and North Africa 59. National Alliance of Women / Asia Pacific Women Watch 60. NGO Forum on ADB 61. Network TB people 62. Pacific Network on Globalisation 63. Public Service Accountability Monitor (PSAM) 64. REDCA+ El Salvador, Belize, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama 65. Red Latinoamericana por el Acceso a Medicamentos (RedLAM) 66. South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE) 67. Southern and Eastern Africa Trade Information and Negotiations Institute 68. The Access IBSA Project, India-Brazil-South Africa 69. The African Women's Network for Community management of Forests 70. Treatment preparedness Coalition in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ITPCru) 71. Third World Network- Africa (TWN-Africa) 72. Yolse, Santé Publique et Innovation National 73. 1:1 diet, Gauteng, South Africa 74. 100 Percent Life, Ukraine 75. Access to Medicines Ireland 76. Access to Medicines Research Group, China 77. Acción internacional para la Salud AIS, Perú 78. Action Aid Association, India 79. Actions against AIDS (Aktionsbündnis gegen AIDS) Germany 80. Action Governance Forum – AGF, Zambia 81. Active Citizens Movement, South Africa 82. Africaine de Recherche et de Coopération pour l'appui Au Développement Endogène (ARCADE), Senegal 83. African Centre for Biodiversity, South Africa 84. AIDES, France 85. AIDS Access Foundation, Bangkok, Thailand 86. Água Doce - Serviços Populares, Brazil 87. Alianza por la Solidaridad, Spain 88. All India Drug Action Network, India 89.